Motoring Minute – Battery Cable Connections

Monday Morning Motor Minute this week is about battery cables! I know….. Aren’t you excited to know more about them!

But in all seriousness, good clean battery cables, specifically, the connectors are very important for the health of your vehicle. As you can see by the pictures below, these battery cables have become corroded from battery acid? (I just call them dirty with brownish green mold looking stuff)

When your cables connections become corroded, it interferes with the connection to the battery. This in turn can cause all sorts of problems with your vehicle such as:

The vehicle won’t start

The vehicle warning lights coming on

Intermittent starting or running issues

Vehicle charging issues

Potential shifting issues of the transmission

As my husband the mechanic says: “Everything starts and ends with the battery!!

We found this corroded battery connection while the vehicle was in for an oil change. In this case, we did have to replace the battery connector because the corrosion was so bad that a good cleaning was not adequate. You can also see in the second picture what good connections look like.

Having the vehicle inspected is very important for the safety of your family. No one would want to be stranded alongside the road because the battery cables were dirty and not getting a good connection. If you notice any brown or green fuzzy mold looking stuff on your battery connections or you are having any of the symptoms above, please feel free to give us a call at 605-368-2050 so we can help.